Four games into the season, Arizona faced its toughest opponent yet against a UNLV team that came to Tucson on Tuesday night following double-digit wins over Loyola Marymount and NAU to open its season.
Arizona clawed back from a nine-point deficit in the third quarter and took a 54-52 lead off a 3-pointer from freshman Lauryn Swann early in the fourth quarter before pulling away to a 75-66 win on Tuesday in front of 7,221 at McKale Center.
Swann led all scorers with 19 points, stealing the show in the fourth quarter, scoring 12 points with an assist. She had all of her points in the second half after Arizona (4-0) trailed 36-32 at halftime.
“My shot was falling and my teammates were looking for me,” Swann told ESPN-Plus after the game. “They trusted me, and I feel like that’s huge, just being a freshman.”
Arizona coach Adia Barnes said in the postgame press conference that Swann is “our best shooter,” despite being a freshman.
“We’re getting her in shape to sustain more minutes; she has the ability,” Barnes said. “She’s pretty fast if you watch her run. She’s going to end up being a really good defender.”
Sahuaro graduate Alyssa Brown, a UNLV senior starting forward, finished with six points, six rebounds, two blocked shots and a career-high six steals before fouling out late in the game.
A 3-pointer from Montoya Dew extended Arizona’s lead to 65-59 with just over three minutes remaining, and two free throws from Jada Williams gave the Wildcats their largest lead of the game at 67-59 at the 2:28 mark.
Williams hit a 3-pointer with under 40 seconds to extend Arizona’s lead to 71-63 to give the Wildcats some breathing room.
She was 0 of 11 from beyond the arc before the game. She made 3 of 6 against the Rebels (2-1).
She finished with 15 points, six rebounds and two assists, a performance that was stark in contrast from Arizona’s 72-53 loss last season at UNLV when she had five points in 23 minutes off the bench as a freshman.
Opposing guard Kiara Jackson had 21 points and seven assists in last year’s win for the Rebels. She made only 3 of 16 attempts and finished with 12 points in Tuesday’s game.
“I kind of took that one a little bit to heart last year — she kicked my butt, and I took that to heart as a freshman, just learning and getting better,” Williams said. “The adaptations I took from last year to this year — big growth, big strength, speed, stuff like that, just knowing when to pop back, when to be aggressive, things like that.
“She’s an amazing player. Just having that competition, that’s probably the best player we’ve played so far this year. Just using that to carry on to the Big 12.”
The Wildcats had 21 turnovers resulting in 20 points for UNLV. Arizona committed 23 turnovers in Sunday’s 65-54 win at UC San Diego.
“Most of the teams I’ve coached we’ve been really good taking care of the ball,” Barnes said. “We always have a positive assist-to-turnover ratio. Right now, that’s flipped …We need to be at 20 assists and with this probably at 13 turnovers (a game).
“When we get more experience, I’d like to have us at 10 or under (turnovers).”
Arizona hit crucial shots and ramped up its defense down the stretch to come away with a big early non-conference win.
The game got off to a rocky start, with both Arizona and UNLV turning the ball over three times each in the first five minutes.
UNLV held an 8-6 lead at the 4:35 mark, with Breya Cunningham accounting for all six of Arizona’s points. The Wildcats closed out the first quarter on an 8-2 run off a pair of 3-pointers from Williams and Paulina Paris and a layup by Cunningham to take a 16-15 lead.
Skylar Jones got into the mix for Arizona early in the second quarter for Arizona, scoring four straight points and following it up with an assist to Mailien Rolf on a layup.
Arizona and UNLV traded 3-pointers the next four possessions, with Paris and UNLV’s Aaliyah Alexander matching each other before Dew and UNLV’s Amarachi Kimpson hit back-to-back 3-pointers.
Arizona led 29-26 with 4:12 to go before the half. UNLV then went on an 8-0 run before halftimef, aided by the Wildcats going more than three minutes without a field goal with three turnovers.
UNLV scored 13 points off Arizona’s 13 turnovers by halftime.
UNLV went up 45-36 midway through the third quarter — its largest lead of the game — before a 3-pointer from Williams and a contested layup by Cunningham brought the Wildcats within four.
Swann scored five straight points for Arizona to cut UNLV’s lead to 48-46 with under a minute in the quarter, but Kimpson extended it to a 50-46 lead for the Rebels heading into the fourth quarter.
Cunningham had 12 points and led the team in rebounds with nine.
Jones had nine points, led the team in assists with five and had four rebounds.
Arizona next plays at Chicago State (0-3) on Saturday at noon.
Recommended for you
